Elegy for My Brother

Joel O’Brien — 1943–2004

First Part

1

Through thick glass —
        protective window —
                I see you struggle in a canyon
where I cannot touch you
        — naked —
                in headwind —
the figure of a man
        seen from far off —
                who uses force to beat back
against force — in the last room —
        where you may no longer
                go anywhere anymore —
and can still clarify
        “This is a nightmare” —
                the spine laid bare
and eyes hollowed out
        you are knocked back and scoured
                not as by a lover
but by the blind hunger
        of matter to devour its own
                accidental child —
miracle
        that was locked in rock —
                butterfly intelligence

 

2

Brother — are these the woods
        and rocks we lived among —
                revealed now — that were disguised
as chairs or sofas — where on the journey to the far side
        of the room you went astray
                passing the mirror — expecting
a pool — you seemed to think
        you were heading somewhere —
                “Shouldn’t we be... going?” — almost
with a wink — conspiratorial
        smile as if to say
                “Let’s blow this joint” —
and later in child’s voice
        “Shouldn’t we be going
                home now?” —
toward the end
        of what long afternoon
                in what back yard

 

3

Chill of language failing — my story
        about our childhood house confused
                suddenly with the movie on TV
and with our being in the room together —
        a collapse of borders    
                between worlds —
what were separate realms
        having become a single time zone
                with no further leeway
to go back or forward
        even as far
                as the top of the stairs —
I had not thought
        to watch time
                buckle and collapse
in the heart of your syntax —
        your sentence
                that kept order always
by continuous plaiting
        of strands — of names —
                you who wove the world —
“but how
        did they film this
                so that we were in it?” —
with enough time
        you might have invented
                an alternate language
to describe the dilemma –
        “you realize this will never
                come back as memory” —
no repeats —
        it happens once
                and disappears into itself —

4

A note
        sounded and gone —
                you were trying
to make language
        do what it cannot —
                what is forbidden to it —
bridge the abyss
        between us — but we speak
                untranslatable dialects
on opposite sides of the border —
        occupy different planes
                even as they seem to overlap —
so that becoming transparent
        you walked through me —
                and I through you —
collapse of geography
        that comes before
                the departure from space —
the facets are partial —
        they shear off
                in mid air

 

5

I begin to inhabit
        an absence
                in whose midst
you are folding
        a white towel — with absolute care
                straightening its corners
to make a perfect rectangle —
        almost the last contained form
                you can establish —
white rectangle laid flat
        across your legs —
                you having become ancient
in bright unvarying sunlight —
        merciless pale orange sun
                a rock wall
that no longer illuminates —
        you are the explorer of where cloth begins —
                where cloth reaches to —
of the seams where might be hidden
        what? — you tug on a strand of cloth
                as if all space
were attached to it —
        and pull it toward you —
                no up or down
in your new world —
        you pull on the thread
                like a rope you climb
a mountain with —
        or as if the thread
                itself were mountain —
the rip in the fabric
        is part of the fabric —
                the rip is a fold
over what you were uncovering —
        hidden center
                wrapped like a stone
in cloth —
        slipping out
                through an unseen trap —
a magician’s trick —
        open the cloth
                and there is nothing there

 

6

The world is continuous
        in which these holes
                continually open —
the waterfall
        a tissue of gaps —
                that arches and parts —
cave mouth
        huge in the room —
                where a devouring goes on —
ineluctable folding motion —
        that we sit under
                as under a wave —
submit to a rotation —
        wheel
                that turns beyond names

 

7

Just in time — judicious
        in placing accents —
                an alarm clock
ringing
        in the empty sky —
                on the other side —
there being nothing
        but what is divided —
                severed by a beat —
a drop of time —
        in the midst —
                as churn or plowblade —
all else
        to fall contrary ways
                either side of it —
a broken music
        nourished by interruptions —
                an alarm clock ringing
in the empty house —
        where the air is rarefied
                beyond tune —
stick music
        scraping at the unseen —
                notch music —
chisel music —
        memory
                is in the bones
and hangs from nothing —
        as you drum
                with one hand
on bony thigh
        in time to the conga drum
                of “Allen’s Alley”

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